Useful Bodies, Socialist Commodification and Everyday Culture: Promoting Albanian and Yugoslav Industrial Production Through Non-Fiction Films

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss how documentaries were used for the promotion of industrial production in socialist Albania and Yugoslavia through a discussion of two short non-fiction films, Në turnet e natës/The Night Shift (1970, Albania) and 25 Godina. Jugoplastika/25th Anniversary of Jugoplastika (1977, Yugoslavia). The discourse of Albanian and Yugoslavian socialist ideologies of modernisation and industrial production, and the notion of everyday socialism are constructed and visible in the films’ representational strategies. The analysis of the two previously overlooked archival films along with the press, and non-film materials and documents from film and state archives allow us to compare and contrast the similarities and differences of Albanian and Yugoslav socialist ideologies toward industrial production, labour and gender relations. In doing so, we aim to better understand the complexities of the state socialist discourse vis-à-vis Western capitalism and consumerist ethics during the Cold War period.

Keywords:

• Non-fiction film
• documentary
• socialism
• modernisation
• albania
• yugoslavia

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Eriona Vyshka and archival staff at the Central State Film Archive – Albania, and Lucija Zore and archival staff at the Croatian State Archive – Croatian Cinémathèque for dealing with our research-related requests and providing access to archival materials. Film digitalisation costs and Ana Grgić’s research trip to Tirana, Albania in 2022 were made possible through financial support from the Faculty of Theatre and Film, Babeș-Bolyai University and The Royal Society of Edinburgh Facilitation Network Award for project ‘Feminist Film Heritage: Emancipating the World’s Film Archives’.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We refer to “Western European” standards of judgment to highlight colonialist-style discourses inherent in such assessments of the Balkan countries stages of development in the first half of the twentieth century. Maria Todorova’s work on “imagining the Balkans”, through postcolonial critique, explains the imaginary and discursive construction of the region, which defines the image of the Balkans as a primitive backyard of Europe (1994). Similarly Larry Wolff, has shown how Eastern Europe has been constructed since the Enlightement, and which continues to function as a “structural boundary, in the mind and on the map” (1994, 1).

2 Arkivi i Ministrisë së Punëve të Jashtme, Dosja 567, 1975. Report from the Albanian Embassy in Rome to the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs containing passages from an article of the newspaper Corriere della Sera that comments on Tito’s speech in Kosovo. Rome, February 7, 1975.

3 Arkivi Qendror i Shtetit Shqiptar (henceforth AQSH), Fondi (henceforth F.) 1023, Dosja (henceforth D.) 6, 1981. Communication between the General Customs Directorate and the Albanian Interior Ministry. pp. 1-12.

4 AQSH, F. 511, D. 50, 1968, p. 22. Decision of the Council of Ministers for increasing film production and screening. 25 April 1968.

5 The Marjan film collection is conserved at the state film archive in Split, has around 500-600 titles, composed of documentary, promotional and experimental films, among which 10 feature fiction films. None of these films have been digitalised.

6 The Yugoslav state supported cinema through a series of economic and cultural initiatives and institutional changes from the 1950s (Turković 2005), and by April 1950, film workers were no longer state employees but became free unionised artists (Sudar 2013). Along with the launch of the national film festival in Pula in 1954, the 1950s saw an increase in film culture and journalism, and the institution of a vibrant cine-club scene, which were amateur educational and production facilities supported by the state (Vidan 2016) and spaces where many future directors, such as Lordan Zafranović, Želimir Žilnik and Dušan Makavejev, made their first short films.

7 Puna 18 December 1970, p. 1-2.

8 Puna 18 December 1970, p. 1-2.

9 Puna 14 July 1970, p. 1.

10 Puna, 16 July, p. 3.

11 Puna, 16 July, p.3.

12 AQSH, F. 511. D. 10, 1968, Intervention of the Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu in the Council of Ministers. 24 May, 1968. p. 1-11.

13 Many state enterprises had cine-clubs and organised regular film screenings. The State Agricultural Enterprise/Ndërmarrje Shteterore Bujqesore (NBSH) in Sukth (a locality between Tiranë and Durrës) had a cinema of 480 seats and five cinemas in different work sectors. According to the newspaper, in the last six months there were 450 projections attended by over 60,000 spectators. (Puna, 16 July, p.3) This type of information was probably published to encourage spectators to watch Albanian films in villages, but it also shows the importance that the Labour Party assigned to cinema as a means of education. Cine-clubs were also used to host comic sketches by amateur troupes of workers that usually ridiculed “retrograde and conservative uses” (Puna, 14 July 1970).

14 Puna, 2 November, 1970, p. 3.

15 Puna, 18 December, p. 2.

16 Puna, 23 October 1970, p. 2.

17 Puna, 23 October 1970, p. 2.

18 Puna, 23 October 1970, p. 2.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially funded and supported by the Faculty of Theatre and Film, Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai.

Notes on contributors

Ana Grgić

Ana Grgić (PhD, University of St Andrews) is a film scholar and film industry practitioner. She is Associate Professor at Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania, and Associate Editor of Studies in World Cinema: A Critical Journal. She regularly participates in international academic conferences and was invited to deliver a number of film appreciation seminars and talks at international film festivals, film schools and symposiums in Europe and Asia. She is author of Early Cinema, Modernity and Visual Culture: The Imaginary of the Balkans (AUP, 2022) and co-editor of Contemporary Balkan Cinema: Transnational Exchanges and Global Circuits (EUP, 2020). Her research on Balkan cinemas, archives, and film history has been published in Early Popular Visual Culture, Studies in Eastern European Cinema, Apparatus and KinoKultura. While president of the Balkan Cultural Centre (Croatia), she co-organised a year-long film literacy travelling program, the 5C project (funded by Creative Europe Media programme, and the Croatian Audiovisual Centre), and as a Board member of the Albanian Cinema Project, she collaborated on film preservation workshops Archives in Motion in 2016.

Fabio Bego

Fabio Bego (PhD) is a scholar, writer and film programmer focusing on Balkan histories and narratives. He is the co-founder and curator of the Albanian Film Festival that takes place annually in Rome since 2019. Through publications and film programs such as Kinostories (Brussels), his work looks into the connection between films and the postcolonial histories of the Balkans. He collaborates with the Institute of History of the Bulgarian Academy of Science and has published articles and reviews in specialized journals such as Nationalities Papers, Eastern European Politics, Societies and Cultures, Studies in Eastern European Cinema and Black Camera. He develops and shares his research on contemporary far right movements in the Balkans through platforms: Hope Not Hate, Modern Diplomacy, C-Rex and Balkan Insight. Fabio Bego has taught courses at the University of Roma Tre, at the University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski” and at the Institute of History, BAN.